'What's Your Promise?' by Andy Clasper
Some are promising to buy only fairly traded goods, others are promising to eat less to show solidarity with the hungry and one man is promising to highlight the plight of the large number of women who die in childbirth every year in the developing world. These are just a few of the promises being made by individual Christians to help end world poverty and to remind our leaders that, ten years into a fifteen year commitment to halve global poverty, it’s time to act.
‘What’s Your Promise?’ is part of the Micah 2010 campaign being mobilised by Micah Challenge International around the world. The promises of Christians, around the globe, will be brought together on Sunday 10 October (10.10.10) when over 100 million people will stand united in prayer and focus on the 1.4 billion people who struggle to survive, ten years after nations around the world committed to halve global poverty by 2015.
In Sunday services and special events from Sydney to London, Christians will share stories about the promises they’ve made and pray together in unity. Micah Challenge UK is in the final stages of talks with Jesus House, in North London, about a large worship event to symbolise the depth and breadth of British action over global poverty.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has spoken out strongly in support of the Micah 2010 campaign. He says, “When God tells us to remember the poor he is not simply asking us to give them a thought from time to time. Remembrance in the Bible is a very real and very active thing… So in this crucial year when the Millennium Development Goals are very much on our minds, when we need to think and pray harder than ever to see what can be achieved by 2015, our remembrance must be a renewal of relationship.”
We are asking people to make a promise to live in a way that remembers those in poverty and to start by making a promise in one area of their life.
Many Christians are already seeing their lives changed as a result of their promise. Caroline Williams is promising to alter the way she shops so that she now always asks the question, “Does this item help or hurt the poor?” The 40-year-old from St Albans comments, “I’ve started to put this into action. During a cycle ride from Whitehaven to Tynemouth in July I bought fair-trade coffee and orange juice along the way. I celebrated in Tynemouth with a bar of Cadbury’s fair-trade chocolate and then bought a fair-trade latte from Starbucks at Newcastle station.”
To set ball rolling, Christians in the public eye are making their own personal promises as part of the campaign. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is promising to make a difference to those in poverty by launching his charity ACTS435 around the world. He comments, “It is important churches help those in need in practical ways.”
Andy Flannagan, songwriter and Director of the Christian Socialist Movement is promising to be part of changing the global economic system. He says, “I feel it is easy to just hand over cash to mend what is broken, but what is more important is tracking back to improve the structures so that new victims don’t go on being made.”
The Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd John Pritchard, is promising to keep the Millennium Development Goals as the touchstone of his concern for those trapped in poverty. He says, “I hope many in the Diocese of Oxford will join me in making this promise and then keeping it.”
One promise, among the many hundreds on the Micah Challenge website says simply, “I promise to buy fair-trade bananas”. More tellingly, Patricia Yandell, 66, from Southampton is promising to eat less in solidarity with those who are always hungry. She says, “You go to bed hungry and realise that yes it’s uncomfortable, but for many this is their everyday reality.”
Judith Holmes, a retired Health Visitor, has seen poverty at first hand on visits to India and the occupied West Bank. The 68-year-old from Newcastle is promising to be honest with herself and God and live more simply and accountably. She comments, “Poverty degrades, robs people of their dignity and is unjust. I believe that my profession of faith is worthless if I do not live it out and that is why I have made my promise.”
One aspect of the campaign that has particularly encouraged Clasper is the way that even those who have been involved in combating poverty and helping others, in a professional context, have been affected by making the promise. For example, Matthew Frost, Chief Executive of Christian relief and development agency Tearfund, is promising, “to engage my children more wholeheartedly, more creatively around poverty in our world, so that they grow up with a deep hunger to act justly and to love mercy.”
Another example is Steven Fouch, Head of Allied Professions Ministries at Christian Medical Fellowship. Fouch’s promise centres on his desire to challenge the view that the life of a mother or child in the developing world is worth less than the life of his wife or child. He says, “My wife might well not have survived the birth of our first child if we had lived as the poor do in rural India or Africa. What my family has here in the UK should be available to all. It is a disgrace that nearly a million women die in childbirth every single year.”
In a big year for decisions on international development issues, these promises could make a huge difference. The commitment of ordinary individuals could just inspire our government to see beyond our short-term financial crisis to a once in a lifetime chance to change the world.
What about you? What are you promising or how are you living out your promise?
Andy Clasper is the Director of the campaigning group Micah Challenge UK, of which OSCAR is a partner. Andy is passionate about the role of the church in the world. To make a promise go to www.whatsyourpromise.org.uk
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